Beaufort House (Chelsea)

You are walking near the site of one of the most significant lost mansions in London. In the sixteenth century, this area was home to a grand estate built by Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII. More chose this location for its quiet access to the River Thames, where he kept a private barge to travel to the royal court at Westminster. His house was so vast that contemporaries described it as larger than many monasteries, serving as a hub for the greatest intellectuals of the Renaissance, including the philosopher Erasmus and the artist Hans Holbein.